The Merch Girl
by walkingwithgiants
Summary: Bits and pieces of The Golden Giants Tour's Edward.
1. Chapter 1

**Err. If you aren't a TGGT reader, then none of this will make sense. Head on over to read The Golden Giants Tour if that's the case. **

**Readers: Here's my compromise. You guys know I don't like spoiling surprises *evil laughs* but here's your promised EPOV. Flove you.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own nada.**

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Six days.

I hadn't spoken to Bella in nearly a week.

I'm not sure what exactly I'd done to piss her off. One minute we were laughing our asses off about everything, and the next, she was ignoring me. Turning away when she caught me looking at her. Smiling and shrugging when I cracked a joke about her. She walked away when she saw me coming toward her. Bella Swan was ignoring me and it bothered me. A lot.

There was never a snappy comeback. No eye-rolling. No loud laugh. It was like my buddy was abducted and a shell of her skin left behind.

Jake had cracked a joke about her being on her period and turning into Hitler, but something about that didn't settle right with me. She seemed more quiet than normal, hiding out in the back room with James most of the time, but when she came out to the front area, she always sat with her brother. Or Riley. Or Jake. Or James. Always blocked off from everyone else.

And that was fine. It should've been fine.

But it fucking annoyed me.

After nearly ten years of traveling with the same group of guys, we'd gotten our travel routine down. Most of the time we didn't even talk to each other for nearly twenty-four hours. We were seasoned professionals.

But I missed my new buddy a lot more than I should have.

How does one miss being emasculated daily? Or miss a laugh? Miss eye-rolling brown irises?

It made me feel itchy. Restless. And I didn't exactly understand why.

"Dip shit," Bella laughed from her spot next to Riley on the long couch.

He said something to her that made her snort and the moment he looked away she licked the tip of her index finger and shoved it into his ear. He cried out, and then turned to say God knows what back.

What the fuck had I done to make her ignore me?

I think the reason that I didn't know is what bothered me the most. Bella was pretty. Really pretty. But pretty girls were a dime a dozen. I saw thousands of them while on tour. Had hundreds of them scream at me. It was just the way it was. So it shouldn't mess with me that _one_ out of so many just shut me off.

But it did.

A snicker from across the tiny table I was sitting at, made me look away. Jasper was smirking, sipping his tea slowly while he glanced at me. "When did it happen?" he asked quietly.

"What?"

He shook his head before taking another sip. "When did you start liking her?"

Was that what this shit was? I knew I liked her as a friend. And she was hot. A blind man could see her tight ass and those things her bras were always hiding. Even Riley, who I think cared about her the same way her brother did, was always making comments about her when she dressed up. It wasn't like I looked at her the way I looked at my sisters. I knew those crazy bitches weren't goblins, but that was where my appreciation for their looks started and ended. A man could appreciate a woman that he wasn't related to, and that he got to see all the time. And laugh with all the time.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Jasper snickered. "Please."

I looked over at Bella again to see her bickering with Riley. She had the goofiest look on her face, eyes so wide they were cartoonish while her mouth was wide fucking open.

"Not your usual type," he commented with a raised eyebrow.

I nodded. She wasn't. It wasn't her hair color or the fact that Bella wore sweats on days that ended in the letter y that made the difference, but…

"Nope."

He smiled slowly, finishing off the liquid in his cup. "Tell Tanya again?" he asked in that cryptic way that only I seemed to understand. Jasper could say two words and I always knew what he meant. Years of friendship had cemented that almost psychic bond between us.

"Yup," I sighed, remembering the tedious conversations I'd had with my ex-girlfriend over the last week. When she'd suggested that we get back together, I'd been on the fence about it. Once upon a time, Tanya had been the person that I _could have_, _at some point_ considered a future with. But then she asked me to give up a piece of myself that I couldn't part with. That I wouldn't part with. We broke up. It'd been almost a year later that she asked me if I wanted to get back together with her.

Tanya was beautiful and smart. She was independent. But a year is a long time to spend apart from someone who wasn't the love of my life. I'd grown to know her pretty well, and dealing with rejection of any sort was not on her list of things she could handle well. Bringing her down was not easy and there was an art to telling her that I didn't want to get back together with her.

Not to mention the fact that Rosalie had made it all too obvious that I was perfectly happy being single. The psycho ass known as my older sister, had even gone as far as to throw Bella into the conversation at one point, and I had to do some serious damage control.

Jasper chuckled. "Good luck with that."

He knew her well enough from the time he'd spent with her back home. Tanya was Elmer's School Glue on my hands. I could wash it off, but it would take time.

Riley laughed really loudly, making me look in their direction again. Bella was swatting his hand away from her face while pointing at Emmett, who was sitting across from her. It only reminded me of how we picked on each other.

Back when she was talking to me. A week ago.

"You need to make sure to cut all those strings before you do anything," Jasper gestured behind him. "I'm pretty positive Emmett will rip your nut sack off if you do anything stupid."

I almost told him I was more scared of Bella than I was of her brother.

When I glanced over my friend's shoulder, she was touching her chin. Right in the same spot where I'd bruised her face when I kicked the ball at her—by accident, not on purpose. She looked at me for all of a second before looking away and I scratched my arm.

Looking at Jasper's smirking face, I rolled my eyes.

"Some things are inevitable, my man," he muttered before getting up.


	2. Chapter 2

**A promise is a promise. But it is a bit short :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight.**

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"My baby has a girlfriend," my Mom gushed, wrapping her hands around my arm and squeezing tightly. "She's a looker, too, Eddie."

I wanted to groan, but I didn't. Instead, I shot a look at my Dad over Mom's shoulder. "She's not my girlfriend."

Another squeeze reverberated through my bicep. "Yet."

I groaned then. "Mom."

"Pumpkin, I don't know why you're being shy about it. I heard you call her your little Baby Ruth," she cooed.

My Dad had absolutely no decency. He laughed.

"I call her _Baby Ruth. _Not _my little Baby Ruth_," I explained to the woman who had both given me birth and passed along her musical genetics to me. I loved my Mom a lot, but she had no verbal filter and didn't believe that there were lines she could cross. She still pinched my butt cheeks when I did something to annoy her, but I liked to think that I took it like a man.

She rolled her eyes at me. "Details," Mom huffed. "Don't be a poor sport. Tell me all about her."

Another groan as we approached the restaurant doors. "I don't want to talk about it."

But I did.

I didn't have anyone else to talk to about Bella Swan. Without even admitting anything to Jasper, he'd give me this I-told-you-so look the moment I mentioned her name. God forbid I said it in front of Felix or Emmett, they'd start laughing like pre-pubescent girls. The problem was that this was all so confusing for me. I'd always liked Bella. As a friend. Then a pretty friend. Then a really pretty friend that made me laugh more than anyone. And then as the prettiest friend who made me happier than anyone else I'd met. Ever.

It wasn't until I woke up one morning early on in our trip to Australia that I caught her switching bowls of cereal with Riley because he complained it tasted stale, that I realized I was in love with her. My Baby Ruth.

Like Jasper had told me, it was inevitable. It was like she was meant to be mine. Everything about Bella Swan sucked me in. Her big laugh, her laid-back attitude, her sense of humor, and her heart. She wasn't selfish or self-conscious. She wasn't insecure with herself. And she was kind of a bitch at times. But she was the best thing to ever come into my life. At least that's what I thought, not that I would ever say that aloud. Much less to my Mom.

Mom sighed loudly, letting go of my arm when we sat at a table in the back of the restaurant. "You're no fun, just like your sister."

"Aww, Mom. It's just—"

She waved her hand in my face, already opening up the menu in front of her. "It's fine, baby. I already know you're in love with the girl," she murmured, eyes glued to the script on the laminated paper. "Don't be an idiot though. You take that nice girl and you keep her. I don't ever want to see that clown called It ever again."

I groaned for the third time.

"Carly, these kids of mine think I'm an old fool. I carried their little tubby bodies around in me for nine months and they think I don't _know_ them—"

My Dad and I just looked at each other and laughed.


End file.
